8 posts tagged “beatrice”
...with limited success.
Beatrice is happy to see that I'm not rushing out the door to abandon her for once, and I've made oatmeal which is one of her favorite things. I'll let her think this "weekend around the house" is all about her, but the fact is I'm grounded. That's right - I cannot leave this house until my room is clean and I'm caught up on homework.
This week has been packed, and I haven't gotten my now much treasured evening time at home. It has been really nice to get out and see some friends I haven't seen much lately. It was also unexpectedly fun to sing karaoke while completely sober last night. Journey? Sober? Don't stop beleivin' baby.
On the issue of daylight savings time: DST can fuck off. Keep you hands of my clocks and my circadian rhythm! I complain about this every Spring and every Fall and I will continue to do so until the insanity stops! I seriously think I'm going to write a very stiff letter to my Congress person about this. Pick one and stick to it, that's all I ask! It's one less hour to address this:
to my parrot!
"I've had some chocolate, I'm going to take some anti-depressants, then I'm going shopping."
Yes, I said that out loud. Good thing I quit drinking.
The goods:
- Lots of sleep over the weekend, replete with vivid dreams. Last night I was doing algebra in my sleep, and I'm pretty sure I was doing it correctly!
- I gorged myself on the world's best cupcakes Saturday night at the Trophy Cupcakes opening gala and drank fizzy apple juice instead of champagne. It was much like a 3rd grade birthday party. This was my first party as a non-drinker and I did well.
- Today is yoga day. I like yoga so much I am considering going up to 3x weekly instead of 2.
- Beatrice has been spending more and more time hanging upside down from the cieling of her cage. This is endlessly amusing to both of us.
- Coffee from Bauhaus. Sometimes it's worth walking a block for decent espresso.
- In a couple of months I will have my Bachelor's degree.
- I've been spending a lot of time in my excellent bathtub and my excellent bed lately. Two of the most excellent places on earth. My tub is the best tub I've ever had.
- I bought some drawing stuff at U-Books yesterday. I miss my artistic side.
- Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes.
- False Spring is here! These sunny February days are so fresh and lovely.
- My car is leaky. 3 oil leaks = $650; 2 transmission leaks = $130; 1 power steering fluid leak = $40. And then I will sell it for $600. 1985 Toyota Camry, anyone?
- I owe more taxes for 2006. How did that happen? And the IRS is getting pissy about the $2,000 I still owe from 2005. Can I ask for a deferral until there's an administration I agree with?
- I'd forgotten how much dust birds make. As if my apartment weren't frightful enough already. I may hire professional cleaners as part of my Spring cleaning.
- I've forgotten to pay 2 parking tickets for so long I am going to have to pay the late charge.
- I have to have a call with a client who cancelled an open project because it is no longer needed. Unfortunately they've already paid for part of it.
- Two good friends have had bike crashes recently. Be careful out there.
- I'm falling way behind in my online class. It's hard to find time to spend several hours reading and writing about fairy tales.
Beatrice is definitely developing the attitude. If you've ever lived with a bird with "the attitude" then you know what I mean. It's like a six-year-old who knows everything, wants to dismantle everything, and has vice-grip plyers attached to its face.
She's done a few neat tricks lately, like hanging upside down from the roof of her cage, flapping her wings like a bat. Today she propelled herself backward across the surface of the coffee table by madly flapping her clipped wings. I can't wait til she can fly, but luckily I have some time to "birdproof" before she grows her feathers back.
The potty training has taken an odd turn. She's decided that pooping on newspaper must be a "neat trick" and so she waits until I take her out and put her on the paper to release an enormous pile of bird shit. And yet it doesn't stop her from pooping on me too... hmm.
Yesterday she decided my laptop needs to be taken apart. She's becoming rather obsessive about it. Whenever I have her out near my laptop she has to be on the keyboard, vigorously trying to remove the keys, with this look on her face:
I'm not planning to have children. There were a few minutes in my mid-twenties when I thought I might like to do that, but the moment passed and I am now 35 with a baby bird. All baby things are incredibly needy, and surprisingly expensive. So far, my bird has cost:
$350 - adoption fee
$260 - aviary
$130 - toys, food, and accessories
$230 - first trip to the vet
Nearly $1,000. Cleaning bird diarrhea off my floor and living room wall? Priceless.
Now I have to go to Williams Sonoma to buy a scale that measures 1 gram increments so I can weigh her daily and make sure she doesn't lose too much weight while she's weaning. She's currently 92 grams (about 120 calories if you'd care for a light snack).
Of course, I love it. I was accused of having mothering instincts today. I'm not sure about that, but I have to admit I enjoy watching her gulp down her formula with that fiendish expression. Yesterday we had our first experimental potty-training session and I think it went OK (she pooped more on the newspaper than on me, so we are making progress). This weekend I will be attempting a game called "peek-a-bird"... believe it.
There are a number of reasons baby birds are a better choice than baby humans:
1. Go ahead, go to work. Your baby bird will feed and entertain itself in its cage all day. Try that with a 3-month old human!
2. College education is much cheaper for birds.
3. Your bird is unlikely to become a teenage runaway, drug addict, or prostitute.
4. It can fly!
5. Better color schemes available.
6. Birds are usually slightly more hilarious than children.
7. Smaller environmental footprint. Children are gluttons for non-renewable resources.
8. In an argument with your bird, you always win.
9. Your bird will never end up in therapy to resolve its issues with you. Well it might. These days everyone seems to go to therapy.
10. No need to block porn on your digital cable or internet.
I could go on...
Yesterday was a big day. I'm actually physically and mentally exhausted, to the point that I blew off work altogether today (I had already planned a half day... it was just a long half day).
The physical exhaustion is partially due to Monday night, when I spent 3 hours building a small aviary in my living room. I bought it on the internet and had it shipped to work. It came in one 70lb box which I lugged home without help. Just hefting that thing down the hall was enough to make it very painful to straighten my arms today. Here's what the final product looks like...
I left work early yesterday (yeah I'm pretty much a slacker) and met with my advisor at the UW. I confirmed that the online course I am now taking is the last thing I need for my BA and applied for graduation. Every time I visit my advisor I am struck by the archaic and buggy software they use to track transcripts. First she had to fix a bunch of mis-applied credits, then the thing froze up each time she tried to print my graduation application to sign. When she finally got it printed the printer was nearly out of toner so it's barely legible. Ah, academia.
She asked me how I feel now that I'm almost done. I said some nice things about personal growth and blah blah blah, but the truth is I don't feel much of anything. Having a BA, graduating with honors, etc. just seems far removed from my life and all the other things that have happened in it over the past 5 years. It's as if someone else took all those classes.
After a celebratory brownie and peppermint tea (I am a peppermint tea freak these days) at good old cafe allegro I went to my weekly therapy session. This week she tried this weird PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder, yep) therapy, involving me wearing headphones with tones going back and forth and holding a small vibrator in each hand while she talks through a list of anxiety-inducing events from the time I was four up through the present. It felt a bit like something from The Prisoner, although at no point did she say, "we want information!" or "you are the new number two." Thank god. She said I might feel hungry and exhausted after from all the brain work, and indeed I did.
Then I drove to Everett to pick up Beatrice Bird. She's such a baby still. Only 3 months old and barely weaned. Her previous mother showed me how to feed her formula from a plastic spoon modified to a beakish shape. Her brother - who is a bit older than her - still is not weaned and acts like a big baby at feeding time (she fed them both together). Beatrice is a bit more mature.
All infants are demanding of attention and discipline, and they can sometimes be downright annoying. She doesn't like being in her new cage. She prefers to be on me. The trick with tame, hand-fed bird is not to molly-coddle them and let them get used to constant cuddling. So I am largely ignoring her as she does everything she can think of to get my attention. When she's being good and sitting on her perch I will take her out occasionally and let her cuddle under my chin or hand feed her some apple. After a few days I will start training her. Apparently they can be potty trained. Unbelievable but worth a try. Here she is...
My first pets were cats. My mom and I adopted a tabby cat named Cheshire when I was about 7, and I also had a couple of surrogate cats at my grandma's house, as well as a renewable batch of kittens every spring who were adopted out. No one sussed out that my constant sniffling was due to a severe cat allergy. As I got older and the allergy became more pronounced it was pretty obvious, but it wasn't until I visited an allergist in my late 20's that I found out how severe my allergy is. I was advised to never live with a cat again to avoid developing asthma.
At some point, when I was in the 6-8 yr old range my mom adopted a black & white Afghan dog named Star. Star was a beautiful dog and very sweet to everyone but sketchy characters. Afghans need a lot of running and bathing, which was not really happening, and then she killed my bunny and had to go. I'm not sure exactly where she went, but I was told a "farm".
My bunny was a charcoal grey French Lop named Puff-Puff. I had her for all of one month before she was killed by the dog when the hutch was left unlatched. I think we fed her carrots. I now know that carrots can cause bowel impaction and death in bunnies... unless of course a dog gets them first.
When I was about twelve my mom and I adopted a stray tabby who we named Harold, he ended up with my aunt and uncle and was re-named Tuffy for reasons I won't go into. Let's just say the kitten endured some things.
In high school I brought home a couple more cats. One was a neurotic black and white cat we re-named KatKow Ching. Then there was a black kitten I brought home from the pet store on a whim and named Poo Poo Fish. Not to mention Lucretia who I adopted from some runaway kids at a teen dance club and Aphrodisiac-Bananafishbones from my friend's boyfriend in Spokane. They both disappeared. Poo Poo Fish was put out to pasture when I moved to Seattle and KatKow Ching stayed with my mom (developing a strange affection for egg cartons) until my mom got luekemia. Ching was given to an acquaintance and then had an idyllic old age until she died in her sleep a couple of years ago.
I got my first pet rat when I was about 15. She was an albino I named Yog (don't ask). I picked the plumpest rat in the cage, and it turned out she was also the most pregnant. She had 8 babies about a week after I brought her home and they all survived. For a few months my room was overrun by baby rats. I gave them all away except one, Satin, who was probably the sweetest rat I've ever owned. I got a third rat from a friend - a hooded rat called Cruella - making three female rats altogether. They all got respiratory infections and sneezed blood. Unable to afford vet care, they all died slowly.
My first boyfriend bought me two rats as a birthday gift in 1991, after I had moved to Seattle. I called them Betty and Vermina. They both got gigantic breast tumors and I got one of them surgically removed. The tumors were benign, but horrible to look at, and they both lived out relatively full life spans of about 2 or 3 years. My final rat was a fancy blue rat named Indigo. As far as I remember she lived a quiet life and was fairly healthy, but by the time she died I had developed a severe allergy to rats and couldn't handle her anymore. As rodents go, rats really do make good pets. Unlike hamsters, they have some interest in human activity and bond with people.
I got my last cat, Loki, in late 1992, when he was just a little orange fuzzball. When I broke up with my ex-boyfriend Loki stayed with him for a couple of years and then came back to me when my future-ex-husband and I moved to a duplex in Ballard in 1996. Loki is still living large and leaping after feather toys at the age of 14 with my now-ex-husband.
When my ex-husband and I got together, he had just brought home a Leopard Gecko named Jasper, and I had rather impulsively adopted a baby green iguana named Fritz. Raising an iguana was a wild experience, and not one I would choose to have a second time. Fritz was very tame, but he got very big. At his peak he was about as long as I am tall, including tail: 5'10", and he weighed 12 lbs. Beside having to essentially build him his own house, there were respiratory infections requiring us to give him injections, a broken tail resulting in an amputation, and a couple of nasty bites sustained by me during mating season (male iguanas tend to think their female owners are potential mates). Fritz died a few months after I split up with my ex-husband. He was about 10 yrs old.
During my relationship with my ex we had:
- The cat (Loki)
- The iguana (Fritz)
- Leopard gecko (Jasper)
- A Siberian dwarf hamster
- Tetsuo Iron Hamster
- Bearded Dragons (Aloyisius & Amelia)
- Blue rat (Indigo)
- Uromastyx (Archie)
- Some other small lizard.
- Cockatiel (Agatha)
Apart from the cat, they have all died. Jasper the Gecko just passed away suddenly a few weeks ago. The most dramatic cases were Amelia the Bearded Dragon who swallowed a button and died in surgery to remove it, and Agatha the cockatiel who dropped dead in my hand suddenly with no previous sign of illness. The rest died from various predictable illnesses or old age. That's a lot of death for one marriage to endure, even without the human deaths.
For perhaps obvious reasons I have been reluctant to have any pets since the divorce. I was tired of going to the vet. I wanted to travel without worrying about sitters. I needed to look after myself. But after more than two years I think. I'm ready. In fact, I feel a void. I've always had animals in my life.
Last Thursday I went to Everett and met my future parrot. She's a baby Meyer's Parrot, extremely sweet and tame and clever. I'm going to call her Beatrice.
